I took several of my WDIM students from my GNU/Linux class to attend Stallman’s Libre Planet, a conference organized at the Harvard Science Center by the Free Software Foundation on March 21-22. In addition to presentations from FSF staff and board members the event included a full “unconference” day of work oriented toward progressing free network services and other areas important to the free software community as outlined on the FSF’s High Priority Projects list.

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman, is dedicated to promoting computer users’ right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants — and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software.

The students were particularly ‘start-struck’ when Stallman appeared and gave a two minute talk and were disappointed that he left afterwards and that they did not get to hear him personally. They were looking forward to it. In any case, their feedback was great regarding the first day but were not really interested in the second day of the unconference.